My Autumn – Elizabeth Guilt

The following September I knew I couldn’t walk to the woods. The carers who came night and morning fussed and flapped if I so much as sat near an open window. But one evening, as I stared at the rich tapestry of colours across the hillside, I saw her. She eyed the house warily, and I could see the lines of strain in her face deepening as she approached. I stuttered to my feet, fumbling with the lock on the French doors and stepping haltingly into the garden.

She had stopped, half-hidden by ivy on the wall of the kitchen garden. I smiled at her, raised my hand, and shuffled across the lawn towards her. She flew towards me, hands cupping my face as she kissed me on the lips.

We talked, briefly, and once again I didn’t tell her that I wouldn’t see her next year. She felt me shaking in the evening air, and helped me back to the house, turning away towards the woods as I locked the French doors against the cold.

 

* * *

 

“Are you his son?”

I hear the stern voice of the ward sister outside my room.

“No, he never married. I’m his next of kin, a second cousin.” When Stephen was little he called me uncle, but the relationship is more distant.

“It’s quite out of the question, of course.” The sister’s tone was final. “Mr Peters’ health is failing rapidly, the chill of the air…”

“It’s remarkably mild.” Stephen is polite, but I can hear irritation. “Unseasonably so.”

“Nevertheless, he’s not strong enough to make a trip like that. He needs to conserve his strength as much as he can.”

Stephen drops his voice, and I imagine he thinks I can’t hear him. “I think the question, at this point, is what is there for him to conserve his strength for?”

 

* * *

 

The woodland paths are not meant for wheelchairs, and I bump and jolt as Stephen pushes me along. He pauses, solicitous, every few steps to check on me, to tuck in the blanket more tightly, and I do my best to smile even though every bone aches.

We admire the sweep and dip of the woods against the hillside, the drying leaves still clinging to the branches.

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